Page 1430 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
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MR HANSON: That was fiscal consolidation. But when Tony Abbott puts 2,000 job cuts on top of that, that is devastating our community. That is the absolute—and I cannot say some of these words I want to, can I? I am trying to think of another word for hypocrisy. I will not say that one. That is a ridiculous blame game.
So I commend Mr Smyth again for advocating for this important infrastructure. And I say to this government, “Get on with it, allocate the money and stop trying to blame someone else for your own inadequacies.”(Time expired.)
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (10.37): I am pleased we have an opportunity to talk about the prospect of and necessity for the Australia forum for Canberra, because a new convention centre is something that all three parties in this place agree there is a clear need for, as does the Canberra business community. Having just been at the budget breakfast this morning, I know it was a topic of some considerable conversation amongst people I was chatting to. It is clear that our current convention centre has been overtaken by time; it is simply not big enough for larger events and does not have the flexibility to hold simultaneous events. It is now one of the smallest convention centres in Australia and also one of the oldest.
We have seen in recent years considerable investment in other places in convention centres, and the message I have been given very clearly by the business community in Canberra is that this is an area where significant investment is going on and where governments have recognised that this is a source of economic opportunity for their cities. We are seeing right across the country, as well as across the world, efforts to upgrade convention centres, and clearly that is something we need to be doing here in Canberra. I support a new convention centre because it is important for us as a city and for Canberra as the national capital.
Convention centres are not just important and necessary facilities in their own right; they provide a key focal point for people to come together and exchange ideas and add great value to the city as a whole. At a personal level, that has been one of the more impressive features of the way this proposal has been worked up, and the thinking that has gone into it. It is not just a convention centre; the notion of the Australia forum is much more than that. It is not just any old convention centre; it is about having a place in the national capital where the big ideas are discussed and where significant groups of people can come together in recognition of this as the heart of the nation.
Canberra needs a venue that can be used by our national knowledge and research sector for conferences, for our commercial sector for trade fairs and exhibitions and by the federal government for international level meetings and conferences. A new centre will be a great resource for our city, attracting new interstate and international visitors and boosting business tourism and the private sector. That is an important part of diversifying the ACT economy, especially in the face of the cutbacks outlined in the federal budget handed down last night.
That is why the Australia forum is an item in the ALP-Greens parliamentary agreement, as the motion has identified. When we sat down to talk about the things
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